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Covering the pulse of New York mediaCopyright 2015Tue, 03 Mar 2015 18:51:02 +0000http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1Soderbergh’s “Bubble” didn’t pop, but it didn’t burst, either.Ok. So Steven Soderbergh‘s experimental film “Bubble” didn’t do much business in theaters. Seventy grand in 32 theaters isn’t exactly an “Ocean’s 11″ type score, but that’s to miss the point.

Of course, that didn’t mean there wasn;t gleeful hand-rubbing by National Association of Theater Owners president and CEO John Fithian, who issued a statement Sunday saying “the movie has performed very poorly” and that despite “tens of millions of dollars in free publicity … it failed in theaters.”

Well, whatever, John. Studios are going to release everything simultaneously as soon as they can. Directors aren’t going to fight them. Agents aren’t going to stop them. And someone ought to tell Mr. Fithian that his reaction is tantamount to someone laughing at Edison because the first light bulb only burned for an hour or two.

If Mr. Fithinan spent as much effort blocking noxious cell phone signals as he did micturating on Soderbergh’s experiments, there wouldn’t be a box office crisis.

— David Strathairn, Oscar-nominated today in of “Good Night, and Good Luck,” will joinRyan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins in the New Line Cinema thriller, “Fracture.”

— ABC is developing a series based on “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” the deafening Brangelina assasination tango that went ka-ching over the summer

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http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/trade-round-up-the-day-in-deals_b110845Wed, 01 Feb 2006 02:32:35 +0000Sean Penn’s next stop: A mystery in AlaskaEXCLUSIVE: FishbowlLA has learned that Sean Penn will direct again after a five year hiatus. The actor is panning on getting behind the camera again to direct a feature film adaptation of Jon Krakauer‘s 1997 best-selling non-fiction epic “Into the Wild.”

We also hear that Emile Hirsch, the young actor who recently starred in “Lord of Dogtown” would play the part of Christopher McCandless — the fiercely independent Emory grad who chucked his comfortable middle class life to try to survive alone in the wild near Denali National Park. Instead of bucolic bliss, however, McCandless met a premature death by starvation in an abandoned bus in the back woods of the Yukon.

Paramount Classics‘ recently installed president John Lesher is overseeing the project, the start date of which is unclear.

Developing…

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http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/sean-penns-next-stop-a-mystery-in-alaska_b110844Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:54:15 +0000Farewell to a Fishbowl“So…who are these people that you write about, just other people who write about other people?”

It was a fair question, posed by a friend of mine. It’s been hard to explain to civilians, as it were, why exactly this job has been so all-encompassing for the last ten months. How can I explain to them how funny TimesSelect jokes are? Why Katie Couric‘s legs are a symbol of the seismic shift in the world as we know it? Why referring to Jack Shafer as “Our Dark Lord” cracks me up, even now as I’m typing?

I haven’t been able to in ten months, which is why my best friend has no clue who Maureen Dowd is (though I can tell you that she considers men very, very necessary) and a recent boy I dated didn’t know the difference between Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert…when they were both on the TV screen at the same time. (I swear to God that one’s true.) I’ve candidly admitted in the past that I knew very little coming in; now, thanks to a 24-hour diet of news and spin, I can at least hold my own in an email exchange with Jay Rosen (but not a long one).

It’s kind of goofy (but if you are a regular Fishbowl reader you expect no less), but I now have a genuine affection for this beat and for those it covers (even the ones I’ve never met. I’m lookin’ at you, Howie Kurtz, oy what a punum). I had a mini-epiphany last night about why, and it goes back to the notion of being a mensch. I do actually believe that most of us genuinely are in this to add something to the equation and effect a little good. That’s one of the reason the outrage over James Frey is so heartening — it’s kind of amazing that such a cynical bunch of bastards can be so offended that someone lied.

As it turns out, it’s kind of a prerequisite for being one of those people who people like me who write about other people who write about other people write about (yes, we’re the luckiest people in the world). If you didn’t get that well, be grateful that I’m returning to the world in which I am actually edited. In the meantime, before this gets too maudlin, I just wanted to thank all of you for being a mensch (there, Brian Williams, a Golden Girls shout-out just for you!). For the FishFriends&#153 amongst you — you know who you are, all of youse — I thank you so much for every bit of fact-checking, tip-dropping and media-whoring (just kidding, Bucky!). It has been so much fun to do this with all of you, and I can’t even believe you let me for so long.

Or that you read this ridiculously long post. What, you don’t have work to do? Look forward to prose far more elegant and precise come tomorrow when MB stalwart Greg Lindsay steps into the fray, with support from MB’s own Dorian Benkoil and Aileen Gallagher. In the meantime, “The Fishbowl Final” will resume tomorrow, and I’m excited for that. But otherwise, this is so long, and farewell, and auf wiedersehn. You know the drill.

Thanks so much for this wonderful, amazing, inspiring experience. Sorry for being sentimental, I’m Canadian. So, by the way, are Bonnie Fuller, Sheelah Kolhatkar, Graydon Carter, Samantha Bee, Pat Kiernan and Malcolm Gladwell.

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http://www.adweek.com/fishbowlny/farewell-to-a-fishbowl_b2644Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:00:53 +0000Eva Hagberg: I’m Out, Suckas!!!This post will be a first, and a last. A little housekeeping, a little changing of the guard, and–for the first time–a little writing as myself. A couple thank you’s, the usual, then I’m out.

I have to thank Elizabeth Spiers for hiring me, when the most blogging experience I’d had was one guest post I’d sent to Gridskipper. It was about absinthe. It took me two hours and wasn’t very funny, but she was cool with the idea of potential. I also have to thank Aileen Gallagher, who took over when Spiers left, and dealt with things like my not understanding href hspaces and Movable Type’s constant pissiness. And Rachel Sklar of Fishbowl (also leaving today), as well as Ron Hogan and Sarah Weinman of Galleycat. Haven’t met the others, can’t vouch. But they seem cool. And, of course, Laurel Touby, without whom there would be no mediabistro.com.

The entirely scandal-ridden thoroughly shocking NC-17 reason why I’m leaving: I didn’t love blogging. That said, I didn’t really hate it, either. It’s a medium that some writers are cut out for and some aren’t. Completely embodying my character (and yes, it was a character) was a kick, and while it’s fun to play valley girl (not always such a stretch), it was the twin dangers of omg-exhaustion and bleeding stylistic edges that in the end killed my metaphorical canary and my unmetaphorical stamina. It’s time for something longer than a post, and I’m looking forward to the long-lost luxury of conviction that thinking about something for more than thirty seconds lends. Not to mention being able to operate at more than one (very high-frequency) creative constant.

Catch you on the TK.

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http://www.adweek.com/fishbowlny/eva-hagberg-im-out-suckas_b272330Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:50:53 +0000“Springtime for Hitler” in Tel Aviv?We’re always amused when the U.S. media takes an Israelis-are-wilting-flowers tack when it comes to popular culture.

Viz, today’s Associated Press missive about how the Broadway musical “The Producers” has been translated into Hebrew, and — shock, awe — is playing to packed houses.

The show has been a huge hit in New York for four years running; unsurprisingly, it’s a huge hit in Tel Aviv. “But what about the swastikas!?” wail American reporters, “won’t it upset them?!”

These folks live with Hamas shooting guns in the air joyously cheering for the elimination of Israel; does anyone seriously think Israelis are worried about anything Mel Brooks has to say?

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http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/springtime-for-hitler-in-tel-aviv_b110843Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:37:37 +0000A Fishbowl Report: BHL in the “beating heart of Judaism”Fishbowl is dizzy with delight: rock-star philosopheBernard-Henri L&#233vy loves us! Well, actually, he signed our book but that’s good enough for us. Ever since he rocketed to the top of the NYmag charts two weeks ago (via Carl Swanson‘s wildly popular review of “American Vertigo”), the city’s been ga-ga for all things BHL (plus he was lionized by Tina Brown last Thursday at the NYPL). Fishbowl sent a super-special correspondent to his talk with Adam Gopnik at the 92nd St. Y on Sunday: supa-FishFriend&#153 “Magnus,” who is ridiculously smart and ridiculously opinionated (and ridiculously…never mind. But, his nickname is “Magnus”). This is his report. If you’re looking for a quick summary, you won’t find it here. If you wished to God you could attend and want to feel as though you’re living the dream, pull up a chair and stay awhile. Love him, hate him, BHL is certainly entertaining. Magnus, the floor is yours.

****
You really don’t have to have read any of Bernard-Henri L&#233vy’s (BHL)’s books in order to have a negative opinion about him. That’s why I couldn’t wait to crack the virgin seal of Sunday’s NYT to read Garrison Keillor‘s smackdown of BHL’s new book “American Vertigo”. After I tell her all about it, Fishbowl makes me her “super-special correspondent” and sends me to BHL’s talk at the 92nd Street Y that very evening. Before heading out, I quickly tear through the first 230 pages of “American Vertigo” that make up his “Voyage en Amerique”. (I guess they figured “Voyage through America” sounded a tad corny). This is no book report, so I’ll leave it to the real critics to divine how a people might “become not intoxicated by their autonomy but drunk on their independence.” Suffice it to say: it takes a lot of brass to accuse Henry Kissinger of uttering “a litany of self-satisfied platitudes” after you’ve spent almost two hundred pages spewing banality with the kind of abandon I haven’t seen since I was freshman in college.

92nd St. Y, BHL — it’s reasonable to assume that there will be a fair number of Jewish people in attendance, but I totally forgot BHL’s other main constituency: Euros. Air kisses abound. Heading into the lobby, I run into two friends whom I last saw at La Goulue and the Neue Galerie benefit back in December. (Ed. Magnus is a FANCY FishFriend!) It dawns on me that the upperclass twits that pop up in the party pages of Tatler must be the English acolytes of BHL, what with their open shirts and all. To top it all off, who sits down three seats next to my balcony seat but Gilles Amsallem from French Tuesdays. I recall Liesl Schillinger‘s deadpan take on that whole scene in the Talk of the Town a while back. It turns out their website is shilling a BHL appearance at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square on Monday. But that’s another story.

Adam Gopnik, Francis Fukayama and more, after the jump!

The lights go down and some lady does an intro spiel on Adam Gopnik. She spends a good thirty seconds talking about “The King in the Window”, a children’s book ostensibly starring Gopnik’s son. I’m reminded that Fishbowl stood up for him back in June when his baseball skills were impugned on Gawker (“Come on, dude, he’s nine.”). I no longer feel so bad for him now that he’s a literary hero.

Gopnik comes onstage and does his intro spiel on BHL: “One of France’s greatest men of action,” etc. etc. Out comes BHL. From a distance, he looks taller than I expected, but I figure that’s probably because Gopnik is short. After getting seated, Gopnik gets things going by lobbing BHL a softball: compare and contrast the “idea of identity” in France and the United States. College, anyone? BHL takes the opportunity to first thank Gopnik, “whom I admire so much”, and then the 92st St. Y, the “beating heart of Judaism”. Gopnik concurs. Gesturing to the crowd, he talks about how “Judaistic humanism” is reflected in the Y. It seems to take him a second find the right section of the audience to gesture to because he can’t spot anyone who isn’t a Euro. Before turning to the essay question at hand, BHL does his buddy a solid and throws in a plug for “Paris to the Moon”. BHL likens it to “American Vertigo in reverse”. Of course, he means it as a compliment.

France, it seems, is marked by a kind of Catholicism that “negates Jews and Greeks” (i.e., Arabs) and forces people to “resign their former identity and adopt French citizenship” (but which is still “great”, insists BHL). But in America, BHL was “surprised and pleased” to find a “dialectic” at work that allows for a “double allegiance”. I guess by now I should be used to such stock terms as “dialectic”, but it’s still a bit jarring hearing it live. Still, on the whole, A+.

Gopnik and BHL are now talking about Franz Rosenzweig. Apropos of his conversion, they turn to BHL’s own Teshuvah, his “return” to Judaism. BHL, it seems, was raised in a secular household. His father, like many French Jews who survived the war, had decided that the joy of being a Jew was no longer worth the suffering his children would be bound to endure. BHL’s conversion to Judaism came upon reaching the “deadends of philosophy”. In the Torah he found “philosophical tools” for “building an ethics and introducing it into politics”. Gopnik then asks BHL to explain the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas in fifty words or less. Seems Levinas was “not a humanist of solipsism”, whatever that means. Gopnik interrupts with a clumsy play on the cogito ergo sum of Descartes. BHL indulges him, then goes on to talk about something called ” d&#233placement ontologique “. When he drops “ontological totalitarianism”, I find myself in immediate disagreement. To me, the precursor to fascism is not some weird-ass conception of the completeness of man. It’s being a total jerk. But what do I know.

We’re on to Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington. For those of you who don’t get their political philosophy from Newsweek, Fukuyama is the end-of-history guy and Huntington is the clash-of-civilizations guy. (FYI, at this point, my notes say “exaggerated sense of self? yes”.) Fukuyama, the poor shmuck, is made to stand for the claim that 9/11 was a mere accident of history. I understand that since 9/11 he’s revised his original views on the end of history, but no matter. BHL goes on to accuse Huntington (pronounced, ” &#252ntington”, remember the umlaut) of creating “false oppositions”. There is no Western civilization “as a whole”, just as there is no Islamic civilization “as a whole”. to insist that there is is “absurd and insulting” to all those Muslims who fight and die at the hands of fascist Islamicism. Now this seems like a nuanced and eminently reasonable criticism. It’s made all the more cogent by the fact that BHL speaks from experience as he surveys the many divisions within the Arab and Islamic worlds. A surprisingly compelling listen, altogether. But then BHL starts resorting to Republican truisms: Islamic fascists hate us “not because of our crimes” but because of our “freedom of speech”, etc., etc. To me, the problem seems a bit more complicated than that. But then again, I’m no French philosopher.

On to the biggie of the night: anti-Semitism. BHL takes us through the various historical justifications of anti-Semitism: from the age-old canard about Christ-killers through the Enlightenment switcheroo that would have us believe that Jesus was some sort of Jewish trap. We end up with the today’s “negation of the Shoah,” the Holocaust as a “screen” for today’s suffering, especially that of the Palestinians. (Paging Norman Finkelstein!). BHL ends up accusing those who are fed up with the Holocaust of being anti-Semites, all to much applause.

On to current events: the election of Hamas. It’s no surprise, says BHL, that President Ahmadinejad of Iran and President Al-assad of Syria congratulated Hamas immediately after the election results were announced. No speculation on whether Syria or Iran helped orchestrate the election sweep. BHL thinks little of Hamas’s promise to install a “government of technocrats”. After all, says BHL, didn’t Adolf Hitler appoint Albert Speer to his cabinet in order to convince the world that his would be just such a “government of technocrats”? (Ed. Eek, Godwin’s Law. You can’t go back from that.) BHL ends up expressing his hope that the Palestinians will sort things out eventually. In the meantime, he one-ups Bush and calls for an all-out boycott. (Though he ignores the possibility that this would drive Palestine straight into the hands of Syria and Iran, I have to admit I’m sympathetic. Hamas has been calling for the destruction of Israel for years, and it’s hard to take the decision to revise its charter just days before the election at face value, especially now that Palestine is so tight with Iran.)(Ed. Don’t be afraid to use the “T” word. Terrorists. Hamas are terrorists.)

Whew! We’re back. It’s time for the Q&A. The first person (some guy with a T-shirt and a bald-spot down on the right hand side of the stage, if you need to know) asks whether it is naive to impose democracy on a people who are not ready for it. BHL: “a democratic regime cannot have the face of Hamas”. Next. The second question considers the possibility that, just as it took a Sharon to force Israel to withdraw from Gaza, maybe Hamas is the only party that can force Palestine to make the concessions necessary for a viable peace with Israel. (I swear I read this in a letter to the editor in Sunday’s New York Post. Anyone?) BHL: “Israel had leaders who offered peace to Palestine”, so one cannot speak of Israeli ” intransigence”. BHL struggles for the English translation. Gopnik: “intransigence”. The audience laughs. BHL goes on: “Arafat was obsessed with the idea of being the embodiment of Arab revolution” rather than a true statesman. More Ch&#233 than Castro. Cute, those alliterations. BHL then takes a stab at Arafat’s taste in headwear. Though I agree wholeheartedly, I find it a bit rich of BHL to accuse anyone of being image-conscious. But then again, I’m not French.

The final person gets up in the balcony close to where I’m sitting and goes on about giving up “Frenchness” in order to become more American or something like that. Then there’s some back and forth on the “idea of Frenchness”. I, for one, prefer “Frenchiness”, but to each their own. Then it’s on to the anti-imperialist roots of America and the consequent absurdity of American imperialism. We close with a cute little analogy of ancient Carthage to America’s military power, all by way of Flaubert. I am glad not to be in college anymore.

Down in the lobby, I get in line behind the two tall blondes (who turns out to be sisters. Score!) to get BHL to sign my copy of “American Vertigo”. Gilles, the guy from French Tuesdays, is getting his picture taken with BHL. The girls in front of me primp themselves just before stepping up to his table. While BHL is working his charm, I get nervous that my copy will flip open to the pages scattered with question marks and words like “silly,” “intellectual mush,” and “On being a pompous French intellectual” (my substitute title for the subchapter “On feelings about nature in America”). I’m up. Just as I muster the gumption to shake his hand, he turns to one of his people and demands a new pen. He’s good enough not to leave me hanging for too long. As he signs my copy, I ask if he would have any interest in speaking to a group of Republican anti-imperialists I happen to know the next time he’s down in Washington. “Why not?”, he answers, telling me to speak with his publisher. And I’m off.

I spend the rest of the evening in an East Village bar letting the events of the day sink in, taking notes as thoughts come to mind. They are jumbled, contradictory, much like BHL I suppose. I’m trying hard to allow myself to take him seriously in the face of all this hype. Back at home, I read about him boasting of having had “a great fuck with America” in the pages of New York magazine. But things aren’t going so well for BHL stateside, so now he’s pretending back home that he never said anything so “absurd” (by way of http://superfrenchie.com/?p=476). I guess he’s getting wiser to the ways of America, after all.

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http://www.adweek.com/fishbowlny/a-fishbowl-report-bhl-in-the-beating-heart-of-judaism_b2643Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:33:17 +0000The Changing Of The Guard: ‘Sup, Steve And AlissaWe’re out. Steve Delahoyde, ur-guest editor, and Alissa Walker, ur-AIGA-er, are in. So we thought it might be nice to get to know the new kids on the block.

Here’s a little primer:

Alissa Walker, by Alissa Walker: A graduate of the University of Colorado’s journalism school and the Portfolio Center, Alissa has worked for and with designers, art directors, animators, film editors and artists in a variety of roles. She is a regular contributor to STEP Inside Design, has written for HOW, Dynamic Graphics, and the Los Angeles Times, and is a production assistant for the public radio show DnA: Design and Architecture. Alissa considers herself a design advocate, not a critic, and is focused on finding innovative ways to increase public awareness and social relevance for the work of designers, architects and other authors of visual culture. She writes at home, tucked into a hill just below a 1928 Frank Lloyd Wright house and above the lights of Hollywood.

Steve Delahoyde, by Steve Delahoyde:
I work at the ad agency/design firm, Coudal Partners, where, like everyone else there, I’m sort of a jack-of-all-trades. Primarily though, I’m the guy that handles a lot of the writing for the firm, as well as the producing and editing of film/video work, from tv spots to video for the internet. I got my start in the business by making far too many silly short films along with my cohort, Wakiza Gamez, which eventually got some attention by various people and places. Following that, I became a freelance editor and director, as well as a motion graphics designer. My film work has appeared all over the place, from MTV to CBS to The National Lampoon Network, and my writing has popped up here and there from Time Out to McSweeney’s.

If the articles were attractive starlets and the foreign paper were a charming rake who genuinely wanted to love them both, it would be a perfect February vehicle for Matthew McConaughey. If, however, the first girl is Alexandra Wolfe who wrote a story on ambitious parents hiring Mandarin-speaking nannies to help prepare their children for the global economy which was published in New York magazine on April 4, 2005, then that must mean the other girl is Samantha Marshall of Crain’s, whose article on ambitious parents hiring Mandarin-speaking nannies to help prepare their children for the global economy appeared today. Ouch.

The two stories feature the same Upper West Side little moppet, Hilton Augusta Rogers, and her nanny, Shirley who speaks Mandarin to her. Both stories feature the same experts, Clifton Greenhouse from the upscale Pavillion Agency, which places nannies and au pairs. The Crain’s story says that Shirley has been Hilton’s nanny for six months. Which is funny, because the NY Mag article was published in April – ten months ago.

I spoke to Samantha Marshall today, who said she was shocked to learn that New York had run a story. She’d gotten the idea (and the sources) from The China Daily, which cites little Hilton, her parents, Greenhouse and trumpets the Chinese-nanny trend. It also ends with the anecdote that opens the New York story.

Marshall said she’d run a Nexis search and found nothing (because New York‘s archives aren’t in Nexis)*, and nothing had turned up in Google. (In Fishbowl’s Google search for “mandarin manhattan nannies” the China Daily story was first and the New York story was fourth.) Marshall also said that she’d interviewed all her sources herself; she’d “had absolutely no idea.” Said Marhshall, clearly frustrated: “If I had known that New York had done the story I never would have pitched it.”

So, what do we take from this? I’m inclined to believe Marshall — knowing the story was out there and ripping it off wholesale is both egregious and boneheaded in the extreme — but it is an instructive lesson. Lifting stories is easy, checking up on them is not (for some examples, check Regret The Error). I guess the moral of the story is to check and check and then check again. Another moral of the story is not to trust Matthew McConaughey in February. That new movie with Sarah Jessica Parker can’t be good.

UPDATE: Wow, get me Hilton Augusta Rogers’ press agent — that kid’s been all over. Turns out the China Daily story was syndicated from Der Spiegel. New York magazine apparently doesn’t need to be in Lexis. Thanks to DaddyGreg for the info. Oh, the temptation to make a “who’s your daddy?” joke. But I will refrain.

*To find a story from New York, you have to search either Dialog, WestLaw, or something called “FirstSearch.” Or, you know, Google. Screenshot from the trusty FullText Sources Online, that tells you which archives are where after the jump, courtesy of MB Associate Editor and Fishbowl stalwart Aileen Gallagher.

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http://www.adweek.com/fishbowlny/when-ode-on-a-grecian-urn-isnt-in-nexis_b2642Tue, 31 Jan 2006 20:17:10 +0000Today’s Hollywood meta-itemCarrie Fisher will team with Heather Robinson to write ‘E-Girl’, the story of how Robinson used her position as a lowly AOL employee to track down the email addresses of celebrities and become friends with them. Including, apparently, Fisher.